B u d a p e s t – The former General-Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), Denton Lotz (Falls Church near Washington/USA), has called on the world’s Baptists to form a spiritual dissident movement and bid “political correctness” good-bye. He stated at Council sessions of the European Baptist Federation (EBF) in Budapest on 27 September: “It’s wrong when state and church co-operate, small children get baptised and we then say nothing about it.” Baptists reject infant baptism as unbiblical and practice believer’s baptism instead. During the EBF Council sessions European Baptists held a farewell reception to honour the 68-year-old and his wife, Janice. Lotz, who had been BWA-General-Secretary since 1988, was officially succeeded by the Jamaican Neville Callam at the beginning of September. Lotz will leave this work completely in December.

Lotz also appealed to Baptists to develop a theology of conversion. A believer’s baptism only makes sense if people experience a new spiritual beginning. He added that Baptists should develop a common understanding of the role of the local congregation. Baptists stress the independence of the local congregation from church structures, yet the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a movement towards unity. He noted in this context the words of Jesus Christ: He appealed to his followers for unity “so that the world might believe”. Lotz added: “We need each other.”

Lotz was called to BWA headquarters as an assistant by the German Gerhard Claas when he was an American missionary in Eastern Europe, He later became head of the BWA’s Youth Department. When Claas died in a tragic automobile accident, Lotz took over his responsibilities. Irmgard Claas (Wetter), the widow of Gerhard Claas, and his daughter Regina Claas (Elstal), now General-Secretary of the German Federation of Evangelical-Free Churches, made personal speeches thanking Lotz for his service. Other European compatriots also offered him their thanks. These included Gregory Komendant (Kiev), former General-Secretary of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the USSR and in Ukraine, the former EBF-General-Secretaries Karl-Heinz Walter (Hamburg) and Theo Angelov (Sofia), as well as the present President of the Baptist World Alliance, David Coffey (Didcot). A former EBF-President, the Norwegian Billy Taranger (Drammen near Oslo), holds Lotz to be one of the world’s four most famous Baptists. The others are the civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jnr, the evangelist Billy Graham and the former US-President Jimmy Carter.

Lotz was given a number of presents on a humorous note. The Hungarian Union’s leadership presented him with a medal stemming from the socialist period: “A Work Hero”. In remembrance of his many trips behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, EBF-General-Secretary Tony Peck (Prague) presented Lotz with a model of the East-German Trabant car.